Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Chopper Scam & The Credit Squeeze

In about 24 hours most news channels will probably
go into another fit of “Gujarat 2002”
and “Malnutrition in Gujarat”.
February 27 is the date of the Godhra train burning and consequent events. It
will be the day out for the Ministry of Apologies. However, there is change
happening in the murky underbelly of TV news business. There is at least
something to cheer for viewers. There has been, for some time now, a growing
rivalry. In the previous post I had mentioned how TM Veeraraghav gloated his channel
CNN-IBN was more “mature” in
covering the recent Hyderabad blasts. Something’s been bugging both NDTV and CNN-IBN for quite a while. Yes, you guessed it right; it’s Justice Arnab. Call him Arnaboxious or
the ‘Dented & Painted’ rapper, Arnab has indeed become a cult. Whether you
like his style or not one thing that separates Arnab from the other crooks is
that his integrity hasn’t been compromised as far as I know.

In the past year we have heard some gentle whispers
and ridicule coming from members of the Colonial Cousins NDTV and CNN-IBN about
Times Now but it’s now more
pronounced and more open. A few months back Jonathan Shainin’s Caravan magazine
was found ‘bitchin’ in the back row’ about Arnab. Now the bigger celebs
are joining in. Some do it subtly, some just bitch about it openly. It had to
start all over again with the Chopper
scam which has been lately in the news. Around March 2012 TimesNow had made
a lot of noise about the Chopper scam and brought attention to it. It was then
buried by the GOI until it came back like the ghost who walks. Arnab & Co.
were naturally claiming TimesNow exposed it first. He started screaming the
same claim all over again of having exposed the Chopper scam this month. That seems
to have upset some media celebs. The fun gets better.

One of the measures of how popular a news channel is
with people is how few awards it has received. For the establishment circles of
Delhi the outrageous Arnab is the son they never wanted. If you look up Arnab’s
background and even his present location he doesn’t have the Delhi DNA and that
makes him a pariah. It started when I noticed a tweet from Barkha Dutt on February 15 congratulating Manu Pubby of Indian Express for breaking the “big chopper scam story”. Pubby broke that story? It sounded like J.
Gopikrishnan breaking the 2G scam story in The Pioneer. But I had never heard
about Pubby and the greatest expose I had heard from IE in recent times was
Shekhar Gupta’s Raisina Hill story. That one is still probably in the courts
with some defamation cases. So how come I missed such a breaking story by a
journalist in IE? Mind you, I’m writing this without the slightest intention of
robbing any credit from Pubby or his standing as a reporter. He gracefully
thanked Barkha for the tweet.As far as I could recall it was still Arnab and
Times Now who really brought attention to the Chopper scam story in March 2012.

So may be Barkha was merely
setting the records right, wasn’t she? Of course! So I tweeted the Bhai-Behen
duo (remember IE is a vendor for NDTV with the ‘Walk the talk’ shows) was robbing
credit from TN for the Chopper scam reports. In all of this Pubby, as it turned
out, was quite modest and removed from these battles. But Barkha wasn’t the
first to gently do the credit squeeze. We all know all reports, documents, appointments,
resignations, parliament bills, purchase orders, faxes and small chits of
intelligence papers pass through Arnab before they reach anyone else. And he
never fails to flash those documents at all his panellists and viewers. This is
what upsets Rajdeep Sardesai too.

Now Rajdeep, who runs the unofficial Ministry Of Apologies, is usually too
busy with seeking apologies from people and probably has no time to look at
documents. So he was alarmed that someone was using the documents which were
already in the public domain being claimed as “exclusive”. See, documents in
public domain can’t be claimed as exclusive, but Salman Rushdie interview
appearing simultaneously on NDTV and CNN-IBN can be exclusive. Those are rules
from the Ministry of Apologies. So what annoyed Rajdeep? I guess it’s that he
just about laid his hands on some telephone conversations between the CBI
lawyer and a 2G accused and was showing it as the “Biggest expose of the year” when the Chopper scam broke again. In
less than 24 hours Rajdeep’s biggest expose was a distant memory and Arnab was
screaming and shoving papers down people’s throats with the Chopper scam all
over again. And yes, Arnab continued to claim TN had exposed it first.

Here’s an important question for Rajdeep. If all
the documents were in the public domain why didn’t he make any noise about the
Chopper scam all this time? In my previous post I mentioned about 800 terror
cells operating in this country. Even that is in the public domain. Why isn’t Rajdeep
making any noise about that? Okay, let’s forget these. There was this enormous
land related issue with Robert Vadra and Rajdeep was largely defending him when
Arvind Kejriwal made a lot of noise about it. Actually, the Vadra land dealings
were in the news months ago in Economic Times. Why didn’t Rajdeep scream about
it? I will you what Rajdeep, since the Cash4Votes burial nobody even expects
CNN-IBN to expose anything. People expect CNN-IBN to expose as much as they
expect Poonam Pandey to cover. Despite genuine efforts of Bhupendra Chaubey to
frequently break news or new grounds CNN-IBN has mostly been just a parrot,
just like its colonial cousin NDTV.

So since Barkha and Rajdeep tweeted I looked up the
whole story and Manu Pubby had also provided some links to the “breaking
Chopper scam story” that Barkha congratulated him for. In response to his tweet
I had mentioned that merely reporting events do not amount to an expose. What
indeed was reported by IE was that the Italian authorities had opened up an
inquiry in the whole deal in February
2012. This wasn’t an investigative report or breaking story of any sort. It
was just a report of some event in Italy relating to the Chopper deal. What should be extremely alarming to
Rajdeep and Barkha is that they were silent then. Defence Minister AK Antony even ordered an inquiry into
VVIP Chopper on February 25, 2012. This was reported as a consequence of the
report by IE. (Antony orders probe into VVIP copter deal). So where were NDTV and CNN-IBN on this inquiry?
Where was Times Now on this inquiry? Where was GOI on this inquiry? All of them
quietly buried it! No one even mentions whether Antony had actually ordered an
inquiry or if it was just hogwash. If
Antony had ordered an inquiry in February 2012 why didn’t IE, NDTV and CNN-IBN
follow up on that inquiry? Any answers Rajdeep? Was that not in the public
domain? The answer is simple, the parrots just don’t care.

After my exchanges with Manu Pubby he put up a
message for me elsewhere. He was humble enough to admit he never claimed credit
for any scam-breaking or expose. In fact
all the news channels FAILED in their job. They didn’t ask AK Antony even
once what happened to the inquiry he ordered in February last year. It’s only
now when the CEO of Finmeccanica was
arrested in Italy that the GOI is again chanting “no one will be spared, inquiry….” Blah blah. That’s how your news
channels fail you over and over again. And then the petty ones are worried
about credits. That Arnab and Times Now have been No.1 for five years and still
at the top is upsetting both CNN-IBN and NDTV. So every once in a while the
celebs from both channels make some petty ‘jilted-lover’ comments.

Akash
Banerjee was with Headlines Today till recently before he quit the TV
business and joined radio. In response to the bitchy Caravan article this is
what he wrote in December 2012:

What the Caravan’s profile
misses out totally is the phenomenal rise of Times Now to the numero uno
position from what was considered to be a joke of a channel when it launched.
Not only was the mix of news / views / business / entertainment programming a
disaster in waiting, the inordinate delay in getting satellite unlinking rights
made Times Now a laughing stock in journalistic and political circuits. Times
When? Times Then? Times Never? were the daily jibes we cub reporters had to
face. When Times Now finally launched (with a massive thud) a NDTV reporter
mocked me, ‘This is the channel you hatch after nine months of pregnancy!’ he
said. (Ironically both the reporter and the channel in question are not doing
so well now)

Akash Banerjee should know. He was with TN before
he joined Headlines Today. TN may not be right in claiming exclusives or the Chopper
scam specialists. But the contempt coming from NDTV or CNN-IBN is neither
surprising nor new. Arnab is now the new legend. He is mimicked in Comedy
Central promos, there are video mash ups about him, “dented and painted” have
been turned into rap songs. I doubt trying to squeeze credits out of Arnab would
do any good for Rajdeep or Barkha. Even the GOI trusts the social media more than their channels.

BJP (A$$ h01e$) is another side of the same coin that CONGRESS is on... Keeping any expectation on them is of no use... Unless they announce Modi as PM candidate, I doubt if they have even an iota of chance to even dream about power...

Perfectly said. While I do not subscribe to the unparliamentary word, I wholeheartedly accept your opinion that BJP is the other side of Cong and unless they have someone like Modi at the top , there is no hope

Extra riches corrupted Indians both political and otherwise. These extra riches are from market economy defined by west and US in particular. Not just MMS but every economist in both congress and BJP are in favor of the market economy. No kind of 'value' can withstand MONEY POWER.It is safer for Modi to continue at Gandhinagar. He can deal with even terrorists but not these home-grown corrupt.BJP is CCC (Carbon-Copy of Congress) and had its share scams. It is evident from many scams where only media made noise but BJP kept quiet.

This one is truly Exclusive. I have decided to bitch a bit about mediacrooks.com 's every increasing popularity and that too at the cost of my Straight Blog as against your crooked blog. Wait till I return after my "Bitching" internship - Look at my internship schedule & you really have something to worry.

Although I am no big fan of CNN IBN, NDTV and appreciate Arnab's integrity, but sometimes his screaming and shouting gets on my nerves. Also he has his own fixated prejudiced fanciful notions about various news item. Last one was about Hindu terror debate where he didn't let Meenakshi Lekhi put her points . Also I have never seen him doing any exposé or critical reporting about the queen and her toddler.

The reason why Arnab dis-allowed Meenakshi Lekhi to put her points during Hindu terror missfire is because in reality even Arnab & his timesnow gives a damn about ethics & morality. These timesnow people are as anti-hindu and queen poodles as CNN-IBN & NDTV. The war within the Times & other 2 congress stooges is for viewership & not for truth. While times is more focussed on earnings & viewership, the cnn-ibn, ndtv & HT are just focussed on Congress doles.

Dear Abhijeet, You could be right in your thinking and indeed that may be the case, however, When Arnab & TimesNow is toeing the line of focusing on Genuine issues concerning our Nation, even if to win the race of viewership, we need to apreciate. Once they start bitching like NDTV & CNN-Ibn, they would not be spared by awakened viewers and watch-dog of SM.One More thing, For a rare change, 2 days back I saw Arnab giving lot of time to Sadanand Dhume & Others Particpants from USA without Interrupting them. So Arnab can change if he is forced to it seems on this account as well !

i tell you what, if arnab goswami visits mediacrooks.com, he'll probably realise this is one of the best compliments that he will ever receive. he does look comical at times but he goes about his job with honesty (its dangerous to claim, but he does look to be honest in his approach).

Good post. But you are taking credit away from Arnab for making HUGE, and by that I mean really really loud, noise about the chopper scam since march 2012. Times now was the only channel which knew this was another sensational scam and had to be exposed. Thats what Arnab deserves credit for. And some more for recently doing a show calling Abhishek Verma the political manager of Augusta and being one of the main conspirators for the scam. This one in particular, despite docs being in public domain (sunday guardian did some stories I think), was totally skipped by Congress coolie Rajdeep and CNN IBN.

Rajdeep, Sagarika and Barkha (and assorted CNN IBN minions) have attacked Arnab on chopper gate and I'd like to believe there is more than meets the eye - its not just professional rivalry. Many vested interests including the foreign company arms agents may want to go after their biggest thorn (Arnab) who also happens to be coming very close to the palace gates on this scam.

Gwalior court order on IIPM is yet to be traced and we dont even know which obscure judge order got the govt to so promptly block websites and automatically activate a free speech debate (easy bait for liberals). Why now? Why around the time Times Now started making the Abhishek Verma connection? But to congress' surprise free speech debate did not bury the chopper gate and Arnab continued to go after Abhishek Verma. This again he needs to be given credit for.

Its great that you did a post on Arnab being attacked by the Congress media lobby, it needed to be chronicled. Kudos. Arnab is giving serious thorns to his competition and this govt. Much respect.

Eagerly waiting for your next article!! :-) . BTW, why don't your extend your area of exposing crooks from just media to other domains too? Media is claiming that along with Mr. Tyagi, there are 10 more Indians named in the firs list prepared by CBI.. I am sure names of Mr. Brijesh Mishra (for changing the parameters of requirement), George Fernanades (for demanding a helicopter), or may be chaiwala (who supplied tea in NDA Govt meetings) must be figuring in that list.. these are usual Govt diversion tactics.. with the help of paid media they divert and dilute the issue and bring the opposition on the same boat of corruption on which they are sailing!

As the basic rules of communication demands, what is being presented and how is it being presented are equally important.I don't watch sold souls for what they offer.I don't watch obnoxious souls for how they offer.

Rajya Sabha TV does a good job, as long as one is not expecting "exclusive" exposé of govt's sweet-deals.

a. For the first three days, all TV channels claimed that the CCTV cameras on the Hyderabad blast site were damaged or deliberately cut. They even cried that this proves the failure of the governance. Till, the Andhra Police made a press conference and said they had good visuals on the CCTV and are analyzing it. What is happening?

b. All Channels reported that the government has decided to scrap Pachauri committee report and proceed with the Sethu project. However, when this Committee report came out, All reported that the committee has declared that the ALTERNATIVE ROUTE was not viable. (Which means that the original alignment - destroying Sethu - is only option). Even BJP has objected at that time to this report and has demanded that the Pachauri Committee report should be scrapped. Now, How can the government "reject" this report and decide to "proceed" with the project?Also, No one gave the real findings of the Pachauri report. All TV channels confuse everyone without even reading the report. Today, on 26th Feb, newspaper reports reveal that the Pachauri Committee report has "rejected" BOTH ROUTES (alternative and the main). This was never reported by the channels. I doubt any one in the TV channels even read the report. Sadly, the report is not even quoted or published anywhere in the internet.

tbh NDTV and CNN-IBN have long become a joke for me and amonst my relatives and friends, the only news I get from these two propaganda channels is from all the online tweets that make a mockery of NDTV and CNN-IBN and people working for them.

A news channel (or any news media) becomes irrelevant the moment they loose their credibility, which NDTV and CNN-IBN lost a long long time ago.

Or-Knob may be, a knob, and a loud one at that, but he is by far the most trustworthy & least dishonest english language TV media person.There are no allegations or evidence of him partying or getting into bed with politicians/political parties. The govt doesn't reward him much which obviously means they don't like him. Govt & people are generally opposed to each other & hence, it is obvious that the people would like someone the govt greatly dislikes. He won't be getting any Padma Bhushans/Vibhushans anytime soon. And as you pointed out, there are no scams associated with Goswami.Yeah, he's a pontificating loudmouth!

I personally have observed that Arnab does a preety good job compared to CNN-IBN et all. He has covered almost all the protests and scams with in-depth analysis and also his questions are pretty direct. For me, he is the best journalist as of now. Kudos to him. Thanks for this article.

Ravinar...I can not appreciate Arnab Goswami....sorry Ravinar.....He is not up to the standard I expect. He is lesser moron than his tribe. That's it.

He should call less speakers on his panels, he is too much an interrupter, when somebody is talking. This is not the way public speaking is presented. He is loudmouth.

As far as credit for chopper gate goes, I agree with you and I will not deny it to him. But he needs to improve a lot. He should follow Arun Shourie. Calm, polite but firm and ethical in his argument. Then he will earn my respect.

I'm not sure why you read this as some kind of certificate for Arnab. It is not. Surprisingly, you are not the only one. This post is about a brewing rivalry and jealousy between channels. That no way makes any one better than the other. While you are entitled to your standards of measurement of Arnab or any other anchor, this post wasn't about who is better. It just so happens that Arnab is beating the others at the same dirty game they started. That game is sinking the quality and honesty in news reporting and analysis. And frankly, none of these channels or newspapers deserve any credit for the Chopper scam. It's the Italians who actually exposed it.

Very True Ravinar! I didnt see your article as a compliment to Arnab. The point is the conflict between the media houses. And the best part about these media crooks is that they always seem to put their own feet in their mouths. Rajdeep claiming that arms deal docs were in public domain all the while is kinda like that. Anyway, thank you so much! Pleasure reading your blog as usual. On a different note, do you post in FirstPost comments section under the name "Akash Mukherjee"? Please please say yes if you do. I felt that your writing styles are very similar and you both have similar political leanings.

Ravinar....I agree that the post is about the dogfight between the media celebrities. However, I felt, and probably some others also felt, as you have mentioned, that you have given some sort of small appreciation to Arnab which he doesn't deserve. From you especially.

do you mean he is fair in debates? Or he was not sold out to ruling establishment? I could not get it.But a particular behavior by Arnab cannot go unnoticed. Whatever is the debate he veers the final questions to NDA/BJP participants. During chopper scam debate he questioned all NDA (BJP/SAD/BJD) participants about some 10 year old (alleged) scam in missile purchases. Today on Rly budget he ended the debate with two points. To TMC's Derek he says it is not WB railway budget. He questions BJP's Piyush Goel about fiscal prudence.

He did not have motives? I cannot say he has. But if he did not have motives, he is no less than a mad barking dog.

While Watching Arnab Debates and how he try to cover Congress is clearly visible So I don't Agree with your below statement .

>>> his integrity hasn’t been compromised as far as I know

However you are right as compared to Rajdeep,Bduts of CNN-IBN and Ndtv .Arnab of TimesNow is much more better and probably that is the reason given the choices we have people prefer Times Now as compared to other channel's....However NDTV is just an Pakistani TV so recent time most of my friends has actually removed Ndtv from their Packages ...One more Lol thing is that recently someone on my FB posted some article from Ndtv Website...Instantly many people commented there saying Do you really watches Ndtv ? Lol

Please do a write up on dangers to democracy in UPA. In my view, news channels and papers along with other institutions ( judiciary, army, election commision etc.) have been compromised greatly in UPA. Only you can articulate it better the real impact of UPA's attack on world's largest democracy

Why do you always talk about NDTV, CNN-IBN and Times Now only? I also don't believe the main-stream media in general and NDTV-CNNIBN specifically. For proper news I turn to twitter, facebook, youtube etc. Why don't you write on other news channels? More or less all news channel report in similar fashion.

May be, it is because the writer has understood the mentality of these 3-4 people very well and so are we, then why waste the time and energy on 3-4 people when most of them are like that only. I read blogs of some on navbharat times, they all have the same mentality.

Devendra Pratap Singhji......This is the case for all media in India. Print or Electronic. In India a person with leftist leanings is only considered intellectual. And then those intellectual make a club and do not allow anybody to enter in. You can see that there are only a few like Swapan Dasgupta or Chandan Mitra who could be called a rightist. I do not think they are forceful as Ravinar is. But they are very few. The whole media spectrum is controlled by slavish, undemocratic, corrupt, leftist intellectuals. Even the new media schools/collages churn out the same product.

Even in our Cinema and written popular culture leftist ideology is so much deeply rooted that we as nation are paralyzed in thinking. This is the baggage of Congress with center leftist ideology supported and infiltrated by communists for last 65 years. This is in consistence with leftist ideology of 19 the century. The real communists like China and Russia changed but Indian communist do not change, they do not wish to change.

Ravinar , Arun Shourie are the noble exceptions. How much they can do?

I like your journal very much and it is like my thinking of these anti-India crooks putting into beautiful narrative and logic. I wish and hope your views get wide range of exposure to reach all educated Indians who can read and write. I have a suggestion regarding the same. I suggest you team up or syndicate with like minded authors (for instance Sandeepweb) to make this site strong and readers can see one new article daily. I wish you all the best, in other words I am wishing India all the best.

To measure the structural strength of a any material, it has to undergo lot of quality tests. One should not jump the gun & must test the limit of his internal endurance before trying new ideas. Ravinar is doing wonders in his personal capacity on his blog. I would suggest him to decide upon himself about his future course. Although I very much appreciate your enthusiasm on the subject.

"Arnab has indeed become a cult","Arnab is now the new legend", you seem to be getting emotional here.This is the same person who after every scam that congress does, try his best to give spin and showoff that BJP (which is not in the power for nine years) are their partners in the scam,in the other words, there is no alternate to congress-"but during NDA's time ten years back....wow wow". His panel is always full of pro-congress journalists and he allows them full time for carrying their propaganda.

very shortly you are going to have 2nd milionth hit on your site. do accept my wishes and of thousands others, who have transformed this small initiative into a mass movement where we can analyse ' what goes on at the back of minds of our demi-gods and godesses' when they spew lies unapologetically.

Ravinar,I am following your blog since last 1 year. you have a fantastic pen, keen eyes, sequence of thoughts and above all skill to hit where it hurts most. But...... but how many people in India can read English and grasp it. And who do, most of them do not vote. It would have more impact on the mass (who vote) if people could read this blog in Hindi. Today, even villages have access to internet. And naturally they eat(believe in) whatever is served to them by MSM. They do not understand language of this blog. If it is in Hindi a debate on 'MEDIA CROOKS' could start in Hindi belt. Am I asking for too much? I don't think so... . Regards !

If all these medias do some real Investigative Journo work and expose the Real Bribe taker. That would be a real expose. I think its not too hard for them. But will they?? not even in their dreams they would prove their journalistic ethics.

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